Lightning Bolt
by The General Electric
Summary: Or Alternatively, On the Importance of Hands in the Magicking of Things and Later, the Practical Application of the Lesson.


**Lightning Bolt**

 **A Short Story About Magic and the Simple Bonds of Two Brothers and their Father  
 _Part of The Hero's Manual One Shots_**

-/-

The assorted properties are **not mine.** I'm just mucking around with them for a bit,  
In settle the roars of a sudden Head Cannon that really doesn't want to go away.

-/-

 **The start of this occurs sometime during Adventure Time Season 3, not immediately after,  
** **But** **pretty close to the aftermath of Holly Jolly Secrets.**

 **The tail end of it happens during Dad's Dungeon.**

-/-

The grasslands of Ooo were a peaceful place. Birds sang, grass Lards slunk and Foxes sat around discussing their next attempts at stealing babies to devour.

This peace was shattered by a flash of blue and the cry of "LIGHTNING BOLT!"

Under the shadow of a Treehouse, Finn the Human sat on his knees, huffing and puffing, clenching what looked like a severely burned hand. "Ugh, why can't I get this?"

Dropping his eyes to a book at his side, Finn's eyes scanned through the text once more. Flipping the pages with his uninjured hand, he stopped, read a passage, then turned back to his hand. "At least I can do this." A soft pink glow emerged from his burned hand, and slowly, but surely, the burn faded away. "Man, what was life before I could do that?"

"Yeah, magic's pretty bonkers cool that way."

Jumping at the sudden voice, Finn spun, picking up and swinging his sword (Which he affectionately referred to as "Root Sword") to point at the speaker. "Woah, Finn, buddy take it easy man!" Blinking Finn finally realised who was in front of him. "I was just gonna offer you some tips 'n' tricks on how to Hoodoo your Voodoo, chillax man."

Sighing, and letting the sword fall to the ground, Finn fixed the Ice King an annoyed glare. "Dang it, Simon, why you gotta be sneaking around all creepy?"

Blue skin crinkled in amusement, sharp, pointed teeth fixed into an amused smirk. "Finn, buddy, its me, Ice King. Creepy is kinda my thing." Finn almost began arguing the point, but stopped short. He really could not argue that. "Better question is, since when are you into the Wiz Biz?"

Blinking quickly, Finn turned his mouth into a thoughtful frown. True, their relationship was a lot better than it had once been, mostly due to all the empathy earned through the tapes he and Jake had watched, documenting Simon Petrikov's slow descent into the madness that was the Ice King, and the ultimately harmless nonsense that he actually got up to. (The kidnapping of Princess' was, more often than not, a cry for attention and a need for someone to spend some time with as opposed to anything actually malicious.)

Besides, chances were the Ice King's attention span would kick in after a couple of days, and he would forget all about the important points of Finn learning magic and focus more heavily on the fact that Finn was learning magic.

"Ah well, you see, Death kinda suggested I should read this Manual here;" He started, gesturing to The Enchiridion. "And learn how to do the stuff in it, so, uh that's what I'm doing."

Simon blew a raspberry. "Book learnin'? Jeez Finn, no wonder your Lightning is so bad." Finn bristled. He had not exactly been learning long, and at the very least his healing spells were perfectly fine. "Woah, woah, woah, stow that gloomy face Budd." Finn stopped, realising he had been slowly setting a scowl onto his face. "Look, I'm not sayin' what its taught ya isn't good, you've got that healin' spell down pat!"

"Ugh, thanks Simon."

"Nonono;" He ploughed on, ignoring the gratitude. "What I'm sayin' is, while its good enough to offer some basics, what you need is a real Master of Wiz Biz to guide you along."

"Uh, okay..."

"What does your hand look like Finn?"

Bought up short... Finn looked at his hand... "Uhhhh, like this?" he gestured holding up the now unmarked appendage.

"Well no duh, but how would you describe it?"

"You okay, Simon... You're awfully... Lucid today."

"Pisshawwww, stop avoiding the question Finn."

Looking real hard at his hand, Finn pondered. How would he describe his hand. "Well... Its sorta pinkish, calloused too. Uhhhh, I guess, I have knuckles and other bones..."

"But you can't really describe it properly can you?"

"I guess not... Simon what does this have to do with magic?"

The Ice King snorted. "So you can't tell me what your hand looks like, but you can instinctively call up what it looks like in your head, yeah?" Finn nodded. "So say you mangle your hand, like really junk it up, with what should be a lightning bolt, you know when healin' it what that hand should look like?"

"Oh." That made sense, Finn thought, flexing his hand slightly. "So, I just need to know what a Lightning Bolt looks like to shoot one then?"

"Eh, not exactly." Simon replied. "Magic isn't exactly a literal replication of physics, I mean, I can fly using my beard. Explain that." Finn snorted. "I suppose, magic creates something, like you'd expect it to be. You wanna shoot lightning, doesn't matter how 'unreal' your image of it is, as long as you have some sorta idea of what _you_ think it is, and what it does, then you can make it happen." He stopped tilting his head. "What's lightning to you Buddy?"

 _Pain. Crying. Betrayal._ _Smouldering, shifting, changing skin. Hurt. Guilt. Exhaustion. Black._

"Uhhh, not so good."

Simon nodded, a knowing smirk on his lips. "What I thought. As long as that continues to be the case, you'll never really be able to really use lightning based spells. Your mental screws will probs keep you backfiring it until you get over them." Finn grimaced at that. He did not even get why he had such an association with lightning. Nothing like that had happened as far as he could remember, maybe it had happened when he was a baby?

"Hey, how about you try some Ice! You know what that looks like, and all your experience with it is through me, so BAM!" The Ice King grinned wildly. "Instant positive reinforcement!"

Finn had to force down a chuckle at that. Simon's insanity sure did make for some, _interesting_ , interpenetration of life events and inter-personal interactions. "Maybe another day Simon, I think I gotta go think some."

"Hmmm, alright. I guess I'll go see what Marceline's up to, she might be up for some hoops or junk..." with a shrug, The Ice King's beard began flapping, and he flew into the mid-afternoon sky.

Finn paused for a minute to watch Simon slowly fade into a small dot on the horizon, before vanishing into nothing, before letting out a small, considered hum. "He's right, there really is no explaining the physics of that."

-/-

 _"Finn! if you're seeing this pre-recorded holo-message, it's because you finished the dungeon that I made for you. I'm proud of you. You're gonna do great things in this world. I love you, son."_

Finn stood out of the rubble, dusting of his shoulders, morale renewed, even as the Monster's laughter echoed around them, and it's fist flew towards him. "Love you too, dad." With a concussive clap of sound and a burst of fire, the monster's fist met Finn's palm, and the laughter stopped.

"Wha...?"

"Fire;" Suddenly Finn's arm, from the tips of his fingers to his elbows became encased in a billowing jet of flame, the monster flinching away as the heat scorched its hand raw. Turning slightly, Finn raised his left arm which immediately combusted to match his right. "Fists."

With a burst of speed, Finn launched himself towards the monster, his fists coming around to impact against its wide open eye in claps of flame and sound.

After what seemed like an eternity, the monster collapsed and Finn's arms snuffed out. "Dude, that was awesome!" Jake enthused running over to his brother. "When did you learn to do that?!"

"Well, couldn't figure out Lightning, so I decided to give fire a try instead." Finn shrugged with a goofy smile. walking over to the smouldering corpse of the monster, yanking his dad's Demon Blood Sword out of its side. Having been stuck in there just before Finn had been flung into the wall. "Man this sword is sweet."

"Wait, you were trying to learn how to shoot _lightning_?!" Jake asked disbelieving. "Dude, since when can you do magic junk?"

"Uhhh, for a while I guess?" Finn replied, unsure. Sheathing Joshua's sword on his back "I mean, I couldn't really do much except heal until recently, but then Simon helped me break through those hang-ups and... I guess I can shoot fire now."

"Simon... The Ice King is teaching you magic?" Jake looked ghost white, as they started walking towards the exit. "He's not exactly the best teacher Finn."

"I know, he isn't, I'm kinda teaching myself." Finn replied, briefly stopping to kick a Fruit Witch in the side. ( _'Partake...')_ "I was practising outside the Treehouse and he was flying by, he gave me some tips that helped."

Jake didn't look so sure. "Dude, you sure you should be messing with magic, I mean... What if you end up insane like The Ice King? Or a buttface like Magic Man."

"Jake, I wouldn't end up like that."

"Magic's unpredictable Finn, you can't know that for sure."

"Well, you're magic aren't you?" Finn asked pointedly.

"I mean, yeah but..."

"And you aren't coconuts like Magic Man and Simon. Heck, Grand Master Wizard is like, the strongest Wizard on Ooo, and he's pretty chill." Finn rationalized.

"Puh-lease. Someone who likes cats that much, is _clearly_ hiding a dark and disturbing past." With a pause, Jake focussed a worried gaze on Finn, unsure of what to say next. "You ever think you're losing it, you'll let me or Princess Bubblegum know, yeah?"

Climbing out of the dungeon, kicking the Dumb Rock back over the entrance, Finn smiled. "Promise Bro."

Before Jake could smile, a burst of fire kicked up in front of them, and the Blood Demon from the Holo-Messages was right in front of them, growling viciously. "JOSHUA! Return my blood to me, or by Demon Law, I will be forced to cut off your love handles!"

"Sheesh, this guy." Throwing out his arm, Jake stopped Finn from charging forward. "Relax, I got this one."

Jake started fiddling with the controls on the Holo-Message player, ignoring the Blood Demon's ranting. "Joshua, we go way back. Come on! Just give me back my blood!"

Jake pressed a button, and the Hologram of Joshua began speaking. "Kee Oth Rama, Pancake!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" The Blood Demon screeched, as it was sucked out of the world in a vortex of fire and noise. Turning the player off, the two headed off once more, smiling.

"Man... Dad was pretty cool." Jake smiled.

"Yeah." Finn agreed. "But really, we had to have gotten it from somewhere, right?"

The two brothers laughed, and everything was okay between Boy and Dog once more.

-/-

 **This keeps happening. I suppose the format I have here flows infinitely easier than my supposedly multi-chapter stories, in that I can just jump into a point in time anywhere across the 3 shows and jump in anywhere, though at least with the Adventure Time stuff focussed on Finn, I'll try to at least keep the releases for those in a chronological order. (For instance, the influences happen on Finn starting from Lesson in Growing Up, whereas Journals happens from Prismo's/Steven's perspective occur during Finn the Human/Jake the Dog, so the effect isn't so present on Finn's narrative, so I can get away with it.  
**

 **At least, that's how I feel.**

 **Also, this is the first one to be purely related to a single property in the narrative. (Nothing in this one originates from Gravity Falls or Steven Universe, except for the shared universe concept of Mabel, Dipper and Steven having written The Enchiridion.) Which is pretty neat.  
**

 **Read, review and all that jazz.**


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